Picking Up
the Pieces
In a Red Cross shelter for evacuees of Hurricane Katrina, a nurse practitioner is reminded of the power of nursing.
by Pam Meredith, RN, NP
I knew I could help. So when the opportunity came, I volunteered. The University of Maryland School of Nursing was sending seven nurses — five RNs and two nurse practitioners — to offer care to survivors displaced by Katrina’s wild rampage across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. I asked if I could go and felt privileged to be accepted.
Two of the school of nursing’s prized nurse-run Wellmobiles — bus-size vehicles designed to deliver curbside health care to those in need — would go, too.
We left Baltimore in the dark, early-morning hours of the 10th day after the hurricane and rolled through Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. As we lumbered deeper into the South, past cotton fields and fish farms, we began to see where Katrina had left her mark. Trees had been snapped in two or been uprooted. Billboards lay in fields, and roofs were in disarray.
As we drew closer to the Gulf Coast disaster areas, we fell in line with a parade of rescue vehicles. Our wheeled companions were rental trucks with rigged American Red Cross signs, strings of National Guard and Army vehicles, an animal rescue truck that turned off toward New Orleans, an earth mover that was larger than a house, trailers and campers, and a plethora of tractor-trailer trucks — each a potential competitor for increasingly scarce diesel fuel.
We pitched our tents in a small town in southwestern Mississippi close to the Louisiana border. We hooked up with the Red Cross and got down to work. People in 30 shelters spread over five counties needed the care we could give them.
Inside the shelters — mainly churches — privacy was precious. Cots were set up inches apart, usually in large, open spaces where a hundred or more evacuees would sleep. Typically, no structure or curtain provided private space to allow people refuge from their neighbors. It was easy to see why the spread of infection was such a concern.
Our work was tame compared to what those heroic RNs were doing all along the coast, but the care we gave was every bit as essential. Survivors, whether in despair or just grateful to be alive, wanted to tell their stories, so we listened, listened, and listened some more. When a Wellmobile arrived, shelter residents lined up to see us. Their needs were sometimes daunting and sometimes simple. Many needed what they had left behind — medicine, supplies, dentures, and glasses.
My first patient was not easy. She had diabetes, hypertension, and heart failure, and serous fluid was weeping from her right calf. A tear in her skin threatened to become an ulcer. She needed medications and close monitoring. I worried that she would lose her limb.
At a special-needs shelter, a volunteer told us a woman had been discharged from the hospital right after her cesarean section. She claimed that in the seven days she had been there, no one had examined her or her newborn.
Our patients were not all shelter residents. Soldiers and volunteers required care, too. We nursed one through the passing of a kidney stone and another wracked by a bout of asthma. Wherever there were people, we seemed to be needed.
Being able to do some good for those whose needs were so overwhelming was exhilarating and satisfying. Though my stay was short, I never felt the power of nursing so intensely or had been so proud to be a nurse. Displaced individuals are being transferred to a shelter near me, and I’m glad I can pick up where I left off.
Long after TV and newspaper reporters have moved on to the next big story, the wounds Katrina inflicted will still be there. Healing will be slow, and those affected will need us in the coming months as much as they do now. We RNs can make a tremendous difference to those who lost so much. I hope you will help in some way, too. You will be so glad you did.
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